While passing though Leesburg, VA yesterday on a Columbus
Day trip (aka Indigenous People’s Day), I saw what looked like a collection box
in a Starbuck’s parking lot for “Better World Books”. Unfortunately, there was some debris near it.
The company is a for-profit social venture whose earnings go
toward literacy programs around the world.
It’s FAQ page is here. Apparently it had started at Notre Dame
(remember, the ND football team is a favorite of actor Richard Harmon).
The organization collects used textbooks and also “discards”
from public libraries, and then sells them.
The textbook part of the business is likely the most successful, since
new college textbook prices have gone out of control (but that may be due to
lack of competition). The company’s own
FAQ page is here.
Again, what’s interesting to me here is the idea of copies
of books as “commodities”. I’ve been
pestered after self-publishing my own DADT books about why I don’t spend time
networking with physical stores and trying to “sell”. Well, I’m busy with other development (music,
blogs, screenplay, video) and I don’t have time for “operations”. I usually tell people that the cheapest way
to buy my books is Kindle or Nook (it is indeed), but that doesn’t help “sell
books” especially in stores. (And, yes,
the approaches made to me years ago about multi-level marketing, or about
selling financial services didn’t go anywhere – I can’t see wasting time
sitting in a kiosk in a shopping mall.) And despite the supposed demised of local
bookstores because of big chains and because of Internet, I still run into them
in small towns. Am I “local” enough for
northern Virginia? That’s a good
question, but my social media contacts seem to be distributed around the country,
not always locally, even a little bit in Europe. I should try the local library soon.
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